Ava S. Butler is an organizational development consultant with experience partnering with business leaders throughout Europe and the US to achieve transformational change. Clients call on Ava to design and facilitate their strategic planning sessions, align their leadership teams, and develop programs that accelerate results and mobilize employees to meet ambitious business goals.
Ava has a reputation for being an action-oriented change leader who knows how to balance innovation with pragmatism to achieve sustainable results.
Using customized ‘best practices’ Ava works together with her clients to define the purpose and expected results of the change, and the plan to get there. She works with her clients every step of the way to ensure that obstacles are overcome, teams are aligned, and results are achieved on time and on budget. Her focus on the specific leadership, people and organizational issues each company faces, differentiates her from other consultants, and allows for the success she is consistently able to achieve for her clients.
Professional Business Background
- Partnering with business leaders to implement sustainable change
- Experience throughout Europe and North America, working with major corporations in most industries
Areas of Expertise:
Organizational Transformation:
- Designing and managing transformation programs to accelerate major corporate change, i.e. expansion to new markets and geographies, change in strategic direction, post merger and acquisition integration, and process improvement
- Developing and implementing plans that mobilize employees on all levels of the organization to meet ambitious business goals
- Building multi-cultural and cross-functional teams to achieve sustainable results
Leadership Alignment and Development:
- Designing and facilitating meetings and off-sites, enabling organizational leaders to establish their vision, mission, goals and priorities
- Aligning business and technology objectives to achieve greater competitive advantage
- Defining and implementing governance models within and between companies to achieve desired results
- Developing and aligning new and existing leadership teams to accelerate results
- Providing individual coaching, increasing leadership performance from CEO to middle management levels
Organizational Design:
- Designing and implementing improved organizational structures, creating a more powerful focus, higher productivity, and stronger alignment between divisions, regions and product lines
- Aligning HR policies with business needs, enhancing long term sustainable change
Training:
- Providing customized training to consultant groups and organizations on project planning, change management, communication, and core consulting and management skills
Education:
- M.A. Human Resources Management and Development – 1987
Graduate School of Management - New School for Social Research, New York, New York B.S.W. Social Work – 1979
Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
Partial List of Clients
- Boeing
- DeLaval
- Energizer
- Eurotunnel
- FedEx
- Genentech
- J&J
- Lilly
- Microsoft
- Qwest
- Roche Diagnostics
- Shell Petrotrin
- Tesco
- Toyota
- VeriSign
- Veteran’s Administration
Selected Engagements
- Created the growth strategy for the UK based division of a global technical services company by working with senior and mid-level leaders to define core competencies and agree areas for product and market expansion. Partnering with the incoming CEO, designed and led a multi-faceted program to successfully move into new strategic areas and build the internal operating model to support future growth. Project received Highly Commended recognition for Change Management in the Private Sector at the 2015 MCA Awards
- Doubled sales of a technology-based communications firm by defining the aggregate value proposition of several recent acquisitions, analyzing the impact related to operations, sales, and marketing, and implementing the agreed upon solutions. The project was featured as a transformation project ‘best practice’ example in Behnam Tabrizi’s Rapid Transformation: A 90 Day Plan for Fast and Effective Change.
- Boosted a dairy equipment manufacturer’s profitability in a major geographic sales market by 5% through developing a stronger strategic planning process, gaining better alignment with entity partners, re-structuring the group, implementing stronger business measures reporting, streamlining the pricing structure, and developing a sales pipeline.
- Enhanced a European-based bottling manufacturer’s ability to achieve strategic objectives by implementing program management ‘best practices’ and metrics, instituting a structured executive steering committee, and coaching the leadership team and program managers on how best to achieve and communicate results.
- Improved the alignment of a global mining company’s acquisitions by defining shared goals between geographies and IT, improving communication between functions and teams, and creating a leadership development program, which linked to strategic priorities, succession plans, and performance management efforts.
- Increased the profitability and productivity of international operations for a major US-based package transport carrier, now ranked #2 in the international marketplace, by developing a new international governance model and creating an extended leadership team (corporate operations, sales, marketing, and IT).
- Improved customer satisfaction, customer data management, and communication between five fiercely independent divisions of a leading pharmaceutical company by creating strong executive sponsorship to oversee improvements, leading a cross-division team to align processes, technology, and customer information, and designing an implementation plan, which included a strong change management component.
- Cut the time of new products to market for a global pharmaceutical company by establishing cross-functional accountabilities and delivery expectations and managing stakeholder issues.
- Increased the speed from project conception through to installation and launch, decreased cost over-runs, and improved market presence for a major European supermarket chain by establishing new goals and measures, creating new budgets and resourcing plans, defining project management ‘best practices,’ and instituting training for project teams.
- Designed and facilitated over 100 strategic planning retreats and leadership workshops for clients in North America, Europe and Africa. Results included clarity and alignment on organizational direction, definition of key issues and action plans, and improved and accelerated decisions.